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Archive for August 2nd, 2011

IEEE CEDA’s Design Technology Committee (DTC) invited EDA vendors to join us for an open meeting during DAC in June for EDA vendors to talk about gaps and requirements for two design flow areas –– digital implementation and functional verification.

We were pleased that 18 representatives from eight EDA companies attended the meeting, which turned out to be an open and informative exchange. Overall, attendees were supportive of our goals and efforts.

With participation from Cadence, Magma, Mentor and Synopsys, all four major EDA vendors were present. They were joined by Atrenta, Jasper, SpringSoft and Tuscany. Each has an interest in digital implementation and functional verification, and DTC study groups have established a common list of near-term gaps and requirements for both. After outlining the goals and objectives and the high-level overview of the gaps and requirements, a good discussion followed.

It was understood by the EDA companies that the DTC study groups compiled a prioritized and substantial set of common core requirements. Implementing each of the top three requirements over the next 12-18 months would address a substantial amount of our current issues.

The meeting helped to define our key objectives that include efficient discussion, clarification and implementation of such common requirements so that more bandwidth is available to engage for the advanced requirements. Follow-up actions were identified and DTC study groups are currently discussing gaps and future requirements with EDA vendors. To manage the competitive nature of the EDA industry, these are individual meetings.

The next major milestone review will be held during ICCAD in early November at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, Calif. The DTC and EDA vendors will meet to discuss findings from this process to review the status of the implementation roadmaps and to identify further actions.

For DTC member companies, the past year was a good experience in working together on common technical topics. As we expand the participation to include EDA vendors, we believe this creates efficiencies and benefits for all EDA users. Further discussions can then go beyond feature requirements to encompass use model and methodology improvements.

Under IEEE CEDA, DTC currently represents 12 leading IC companies and was formed to identify and gather common concerns, gaps and requirements for EDA and to voice them and to bring them to the attention of the EDA industry.